8 killed in Israeli airstrike on Lebanon's mountainous area

Eight people were killed and many others injured on Wednesday morning in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in a mountainous area southeast of Lebanese capital Beirut, reported Xinhua, quoting Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA).

Rescue teams are still searching for missing persons after the airstrike, which targeted the building in the village of Dawhet Aramoun in Aley district, Mount Lebanon Governorate, the NNA reported.

Meanwhile, Lebanese TV channels reported that Israeli warplanes launched nine consecutive airstrikes at dawn, and five more on Wednesday morning, on different areas of Beirut's southern suburbs, including several attacks on the Dar al-Hawra Medical Center in Haret Hreik, Beirut's Dahieh suburb.

Those attacks have destroyed several buildings, triggered fire, and touched off heavy traffic as hundreds of people fled to Beirut for safety, the channels reported, without providing further information on the casualties.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee has issued separate evacuation warnings on social media platform X prior to the strikes.

After the raids, the Israeli army claimed the destruction of most of the missile production sites and weapons warehouses allegedly belonging to Hezbollah.

Also on Wednesday, Hezbollah said in separate statements that it confronted two reconnaissance movements of Israeli forces, the first trying to infiltrate towards the outskirts of Bint Jbeil via the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon and the second towards the villages of Ainata and Maroun al-Ras in the central sector of the border area.

Hezbollah said it had killed and wounded Israeli soldiers in both clashes, without specifying the number of casualties.

It said in another statement that since Oct. 1, when Israel initiated a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon, Hezbollah has carried out 70 military operations aiming at 33 Israeli targets, killing more than 100 Israeli officers and soldiers and injuring 1,000 others.

Since Sept. 23, the Israeli army has intensified its air attack on Lebanon in an escalation of conflict with Hezbollah.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, the death toll in Lebanon from Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the conflict in October last year has reached 3,287, with injuries hitting 14,222.